What Do You Know Deutschland? [Remaster]

Performer: KMFDM
Engineer: Raymond Watts
Producer: KMFDM
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: Personnel: Jr. Blackmail (vocals); Sascha Konietzko (bass instrument); En Esch (drums); Raymond Watts (programming). Audio Remasterers: Rick Fisher ; Sasche Konietzko. KMFDM's 1986 sophomore release WHAT DO YOU KNOW, DEUTSCHLAND? further refines the industrial-dance blueprint established on the band's 1984 debut, OPIUM. Like their genre-mates Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM married guitar-driven heavy metal muscle to clanging, trance-inducing beats to arrive at a sound that is simultaneously catchy and forbidding. WHAT DO YOU KNOW is less aggressive and more synth-oriented than the band's later material (with different production and more soul-influenced singing, "Itchy Bitchy" could be a Prince B-side), but there is plenty of the classic '80s industrial sound to please fans of the genre. This 1986 debut by the Sascha Konietzko-led KMFDM features some of the better industrial/dance experiments recorded by the one-time media artist between 1983 and 1985. Plodding and repetitive tracks like "Conillon" and "Positiv" render What do You Know, Deutschland? less energetic than later releases as they lack the guitar fury that figures prominently in KMFDM's better mid-career work. There are still plenty of tasty synth flurries within the disc's more dance-oriented industrial material. Violent and perverted lyrical themes ("Itchy Bitchy") occasionally give way to the scathing political commentary ("What do You Know") that helped define the group's subversive identity. Featuring Aidan Hughes's first contribution to what would eventually be one of rock music's most memorable cover art collections, What do You Know, Deutschland? has enough industrial grit to keep KMFDM fans interested in, if not awed by its dark intentions. ~ Vincent Jeffries

The German industrial dance act KMFDM were one of the first bands to recognize the link between the mechanical ferocity of industrial music and the unrelenting rhythms of the dance floor. Although they formed in Germany in 1984, they soon made a name for themselves in the United States as one of the premier bands on the seminal Chicago industrial label Wax Trax. While their popularity faltered a bit in the wake of more cartoonish American versions of KMFDM's aesthetic, the band's influence on industrial music can not be underestimated.

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